---i . .. I/'(é . t\ .,I, '\ /I!! ), n" dA A J Ii J " , I V\, J \ {j\1 1,1 Mr. Fairbanks Pulling a "Mr. Fairbanks" in "Don Q" 16 venuto Cellini ? Well, sir, it turns out that the Show-Off is always saying "Sign on the dotted line" and the Pugilist barks constantly "Is Zat So? "-and the audience screams with delight. Albert Carroll gives some creditable imitations of Joseph Schildkraut and Lynn Fontanne (though they in no way compare with his last year's John Barry- more and Emily Stevens) and Sadie Sussman is excel- lent as the Mary Hay of Ciro's. The rest is dismal ex- cept a burlesque of "What Price Glory," with an effem- inate captain and sergeant, which is not funny any more after the first six seconds. -H. J. M. Music / A FEW gentle objurga- tions concerning vocal masters and their methods, uttered in this department a few weeks ago, have reaped an unexpected collection of incitements to further de- m urrers against th e gen try who are Teaching America to Sing. One eminent pro- fessor urges us to "pour vials of wrath on the vocal wreck.. ers," which is truly a tempta- tion. However, we're out of urns of ire, but if anybody cares to ship us a few, f. o. b. THE NEW YORKER, we'll throw a pouring party to which all vocal wreck- ers are invited. Yet the encouragement from the pioneering spirits who read this rubric leads us to further dissertation on the events of the last month, which proved to be one of the most interesting musical moons of the year. There weren't many public concerts, but anyone who felt that way about it could hear some half dozen different auditions for various worthy enterprises. And these auditions, it seems to us, were more indica- tive of our musical trends than a cycle of recitals. Our principal observation is that music teachers seem to be instructing their charges in almost every- thing except music. The guiltiest, the doctors of song, evidently devote most of their time to lectures on "tone making." We confess, not too cheerfully, to having heard somewhat more than 300 singers this June, and, according to our statistics, fourteen-possi- bly fifteen-of these seemed to enjoy their vocation. It was patent that almost all of them had been taught to sing miscellaneous vowel sounds at various vocal altitudes. After acquIring a degree-not a great one-of proficiency in this desultory business, these singers apparently were pushed in front of copies of "Vissi d' Arte" or "Eri Tu." In the assorted symbols on the printed page they saw just so many more vowel sounds to be emitted at more or less definite points on the scale. It isn't essential that we inflict on you the conclusion of this absorbing mechanical process. If you attended any vocal auditions, you heard it. If j I j' j THE NE.WYORKER you didn't-so much velvet for you! Something of the same order was obvious in the pianists and fiddlers who performed for the stricken judges, with this difference: whereas the singing men- tors generally taught their customers how to produce unpleasant noises, the instrumental bosses had drilled into their disciples a notable technical expertness. But in many good reproductions óf the notes of the Grieg piano concerto and the Men- delssohn violin concerto there were few convincing per- formances of the music. One could almost hear the prof es- sor whispering, "now cross the thumb under" or "up bow! " Well, what are you going to do about it? Well, what we would do about it would be something like this: We should insist that the young singer or instrumental- ist spend at least two Winters listening to music, and we shouldn't worry much about his technical progress in the interval. We should try to interest him in music first, and twenty-seventh or twenty- eighth in such matters as tone production, passages in sixths or spiccato bowing. Exordium: we should struggle to show the student what he was try- attempted to instruct him in \ ......, \. } I '-' ing to do before we musical engineering. With which we wish you a pleasant July, and promise to abstain from preaching until we hear more auditions.-R. A. S. Art A FTER a few visits to the Summer shows we were about to surrender a few of the front line trenches, and woefully admit that there was not much use in fighting any battle unless there was an army of occupation eager to settle in the captured territory. For, alas, the army seems satisfied to sit and smoke in the shelters and let the outposts do the worrying and expose themselves to the snipers. They seem content with things as they are. Or perhaps, it is a matter of desertions. Where do the moderns go when the Summer comes in? Rampant and roar- ing as they are in the Winter in town, Spring finds them far afield or fishing. The answer may be that the moderns know that their market is non-existent in the Summer months. It is a time when the cot- tagers dash in from Newport or the Hamptons to pick up a pair of sport shoes or a new picture for the room that's to be done over. Anything smart in the sport shoe will do, and anything comfortable in the picture frame. The Macbeth Galleries have as shrewd a show as we have seen this off season. Cool and calm and reassuring, with a dash of antiquity here and there